The topic this Tuesday is top 10 fill-in your favorite genre. Eye-opening books may not be my favorite (or even a genre) but it’s the theme I felt compelled to write on this week. Influenced by the spirit of the truth-telling finale in the gut-wrenching HBO series, Chernobyl, I relate ten favorite eye-opening reads.
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl since January of 2018. Jana writes, “it was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” In that spirit, link up with your list at That Artsy Reader Girl and comment with your list, link, or thoughts below.
I chose those books, fiction and non, which greatly affected how I viewed the world upon reading them: (Books are linked to Goodreads)
Non-fiction
- The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery | D.T. Max ( I stopped eating beef completely after reading this book)
- The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women | Kate Moore (the incredible expose of corporate greed glaringly unaccountable for workers’ safety)
- What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen | Kate Fagan (a revelatory story about the mounting pressures young college athletes face to be perfect)
- All the President’s Men | Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (legendary account of the grand conspiracy to subvert the electoral process and the dogged reporters who exposed it)
Fiction
* The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini (original, memorable, searing tale of friendship and regret set during the destruction of Afghanistan–constant wtf moments while reading)
* Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro (somewhat indescribable; a breathless symbolic account of young love, the power of lies, and what it means to be human)
* Nectar in a Sieve | Kamala Markandaya (1955 saga about a young peasant’s struggle and sacrifice to keep her family alive in poverty-stricken India)
* Lincoln in the Bardo | George Saunders (read this dizzying masterpiece, or better yet, listen to the amazing 166 narrator audio version)
* The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood (game-changing, patriarchy-skewering, alt-reality based on reality, modern classic)
* Turtles All the Way Down | John Green (not my favorite by J.G but a solid, often uncomfortable exploration into teenage mental illness)
Have you read any books which opened your eyes to places and circumstances unknown? I’m craving more of these influential reads. What did you choose for your list today?
The Scented Library 
We have such similar taste in books! I loved The Handmaid’s Tale and The Radium Girls.
My TTT.
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That’s such a compliment😁 Cant wait to see what everyone posted after work!
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This is a list of wonderful books. Yes, eye-opening. Great idea for a category. I’d have to put Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Civility by Stephen L. Carter as well as Working by Studs Terkel, The Last Shot by Darcy Frey, Material World by Peter Menzel, and Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam.
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Thank you, I thought it was a great idea for Jana to ask for our list titles in the link up too. Several lists jumped out at me that way.
And mega-thanks for the books recs, I forgot about Zen somewhere along the way, and I’ve read some of The Good War by Studs Terkel, I will get to those two and check out the other titles you shared too:)
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Great list! The Kite Runner was such a heartbreaking read but so powerful!
My TTT: https://lifewithallthebooks.com/2019/06/04/top-ten-tuesday-books-from-my-favourite-genre/
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Yes, I remember being rather shocked by TKR, nothing sugar-coated that’s for sure. I enjoy those books which ask tough questions and leave it to the reader to answer. I will check out your faves:)
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No it’s not sugar coated at all – but it’s a great read and so eye opening 🙂
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Radium Girls, All The President’s Men, Turtles–all great. I appreciate how creative Lincoln in the Bardo was but I didn’t enjoy it. I really like the list!
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I get that opinion about LitB 100%. Its a book I’d never reread but it was incredibly eye-opening as much for the shocking afterlife depictions and supreme anguish as for the original perspective on death. Ultimately, I found the idea of whatever preoccupations humans have in life carrying over beyond life profoundly moving. It provided so much to think about.
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Well that helps! Honestly
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I have The Kite Runner sitting on my shelves, but I just haven’t gotten to it yet.
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Not an easy read by far, but truly one of the most memorable books for me. I love the recent hisory woven into the events, too, it offered another perspective to the news coverage.
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Well, this all sounds incredibly heavy. You know I love these kind of stories (Virgin Suicides, WTF?) and I’m interested in a lot of what’s here, but yikes, maybe not at the moment. Gotta confess I’m wicked curious about Chernobyl, but it’s the kind of show that leaves me more infuriated than entertained or informed. I think it might be a kind of hate watch thing for me, as I sit there trying not to hurl things at my television.
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Chernobyl was truly can’t look away for me. But I’ve been interested in that story for almost 20 years. There was an online motorcycle tour of the still desolate area I viewed maybe 10 years ago. It’s so eerie. I know what you mean about the anger-but there’s more to learn from than get angry about in that case for me. The repercussions and cost were of such magnitude, I’m glad to know it was egregious error that caused it-seems less likely to occur again. (wishful thinking probably). There were a few cover-my-eyes scenes I absolutely couldn’t watch involving animals, but I’m a softie when it comes to them.
Even more traumatizing was my recent watch of Catch-22. Holy shit! That show, which skewered the military war machine brilliantly, REALLY messed me up. I certainly should not have gotten on a plane while midway through. Total nightmare disturbing , but well done in achieving it’s goal I think.
Speaking of tv shows–Happy Stranger Things day!!! We won’t be bingeing but watching an episode or two per week. I’m loving the aesthetic so much, 80s summers were the best, sigh.
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Ooh, and it’s ’80s summering SO well! El actually wears a romper (?) that I SWEAR I owned, and all the stuff happening at the mall is gold – The Gap, Waldenbooks, Corn Dog on a Stick! I don’t know if Baskin Robbins/31 Flavours in the States (you guys do have them in the States, right?) is also doing this promotion, but here they’ve done an overlay on their stores in conjunction with Stranger Things so they look like the Scoops Ahoy shop Steve works at (in his adorable little sailor costume; didn’t think I could love that guy more, but apparently all you had to do was put him in a sailor costume!) They’ve got items like the USS Butterscotch, which is actually from the show, and then Stranger Things-inspired sundaes like the Demagorgon Sundae (the waffle bowl it comes in looks like the evil petal things around its head and it’s filled with red strawberry sauce – very inventive.) 🙂
Hmm, I was thinking of checking out Catch 22 – have actually never read the book either, come to think of it. George Clooney, right? Or maybe he just produced it. You know what idiot thing I watched on a plane last time we flew? Almost Famous. It’s one of my favourite feel-good movies…I just somehow forgot about the 15-minute long almost-plane crash that happens at the end. Thankfully Delta DID remember, and it was excised from the movie. Idiot (talking to myself here.)
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